NIGERIA would have become far better economically had democracy hero Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola been allowed to become president in 1993, his son Jamiu has said.
“Nigeria would have been better because, at that time, it was a very special time in global times; that 1993 period was a time when the world itself was having an international economic boom,” he said on Thursday during Channels Television’s June 12 Special Forum to celebrate Nigeria’s 26 years of unbroken democratic rule.
“So, we could have tapped into that. But what did we get in return? We got a Kleptomaniac as head of state. I am not going to talk about (Sani) Abacha because he has his problems wherever he has found himself,” he said.
The special event was tagged ‘Nigeria’s Democratic Journey: An Inter-Generational Conversation On Building A Better Nation’.
Thirty-two years after the election was annulled and 25 years after MKO’s death, Jamiu, who is Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, believes some people were hellbent on erasing his father’s name from Nigeria’s history.
He said, “I wrote a book in 2015 because I came to realise that my father’s name was becoming like a memory that was becoming distant and people were hellbent on rewriting the history of Nigeria without him.
“People would come from abroad, foreign presidents, they would mention Yar’Adua and others and they would not mention Chief MKO Abiola.
“Some people wanted to bury his name. Like my father would say: they wanted to shave his head in his absence.
“So, I now wrote a book in 2015, ‘The President Who Never Ruled’, so that his name cannot be forgotten.”
Three years later, in 2018, Abiola was posthumously awarded Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR) by then President Muhammadu Buhari, who also declared June 12 Democracy Day, a move considered by many as long overdue.
But it wasn’t just Jamiu’s father that paid a huge price for his fight for democracy, his mother, Kudirat, a pro-democracy campaigner was assassinated in 1996.
She was one of the June 12 icons and prominent Nigerians to be recognised by President Tinubu with national merit awards on Thursday. He posthumously awarded her the title Commander of the Federal Republic.
Jamiu, who described the killing of his mother as a terrible experience, appreciated President Tinubu for the recognition bestowed on her as a democracy hero.
“One of the most loyal persons to him (MKO Abiola) at that time, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is now the president of Nigeria. May God bless him for honouring my mother today.”
In February 2025, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) who was Head of State in 1993 and annulled the election released a 420-page memoir titled, ‘A Journey in Service: An Autobiography of Ibrahim Babangida’. In the book, he admitted for the first time that Abiola won the 1993 poll and blamed General Abacha for the action.
After General Babangida, who took over power in 1985 through a coup against General Muhammadu Buhari, annulled on June 24 1993, he was forced to resign two months later in the wake of the protests and unrest that followed.
Before leaving, he formed and handed power over to an interim government with businessman Ernest Sonekan as president and Sani Abacha as Chief of Defence Staff and Minister of Defence. On November 18, 1993, three months into his administration, Abacha overthrew Sonekan in a palace coup and became the head of state.
It was the Abacha regime that arrested and detained MKO. The regime was also behind the assination of Jamiu’s mother. Abacha died suddenly and mysteriously in office in 1998 and was succeeded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Making reference to General Babangida’s book and his admission that Abiola won the 1993 election, Jamiu said, “He (IBB) mentioned that the election was annulled by General Abacha but all of that is tales by moonlight.
“If that was the case, nothing stopped him from bringing up that when General Abacha died to General Abdulsalami who is also from Niger State and a good friend of his, to say: ‘I was forced to annul this election because General Abacha wanted to kill MKO Abiola. Now, MKO Abiola is in jail. Why don’t you release him to get a medical checkup as opposed to him eventually dying in jail?’
“Even if he didn’t tell Abdulsalami to de-annul the election, at least let him go to have a medical checkup and Abacha was dead.
“If Abacha was the problem, they could have come up with the result.
“This result that was announced in his book could have been announced when General Abdulsalami came into power and they could have allowed him to get a medical checkup. Maybe he would have survived,” Jamiu said.